Corpus Christmas Read Online Free Page B

realize it was you. Do come in.”
    With a thin gray beard that hung down over his woolly muffler, Jacob Munson was small and spry enough to remind a more fanciful
     imagination than Mrs. Beardsley’s of an elf escaped from Santa’s workshop. Adding to the illusion was the perennial cloud
     of peppermint fumes in which he had moved ever since his doctors forbade cigarettes, and his eyes danced with merriment and
     goodwill beneath his wide-brimmed black fedora.
    “Mrs. Beardsley, is it not?” A slight German accent underlay his friendly tone. “The others are here?”
    “I believe so.” She started to escort him toward the director’s office at the far end of the vaulted marble hall where the
     others were gathered when she suddenly found her outstretched arm draped with Mr. Munson’s muffler and overcoat. His hat and
     gloves followed in rapid order and he himself was speeding across the polished tiles before Mrs. Beardsley could make it clear
     that she was not some sort of resident butler or hatcheck girl.
    Miffed, she carried the art dealer’s outer garments over to a bench near Miss Ruffton’s desk and dumped them there, grateful
     that the secretary had not been required to attend tonight’s informal meeting and had therefore missed this minor humiliation.
     Miss Ruffton was an enigmatic young black woman who never talked back or argued, yet Mrs. Beardsley suspected that she secretly
     enjoyed any affronts to the older woman’s dignity.
    As she put on her own coat and gloves to leave, Mrs. Beardsley subconsciously tried to fault Miss Ruffton but found nothing
     to seize upon. The secretary’s gleaming desktop was bare except for an appointment calendar, a pot of red poinsettias in gold
     foil, and one of those stodgy brochures that outlined the history of the Erich Breul House.
    And that reminded Mrs. Beardsley: Where was young Mr. Evans? Didn’t Mr. Munson expect him to join them? She pushed back the
     cuff of her cashmere glove and glanced at her watch. Everyone else was there except him.
    “Boys!” she murmured to herself. With her children hundreds of miles away and occupied by families of their own, she had unconsciously
     transferred her maternal interest to Pascal Grant, who would never completely grow up. And she’d be quite surprised if Rick
     Evans were a day past twenty. Now what sort of mischief, she wondered, could be keeping those two so long in the basement?
    Officiously, Mrs. Beardsley opened a door concealed beneath the marble stairwell, passed along a short hall that led back
     to what was left of the butler’s pantry, turned right, and descended the stairs to the basement.
    * * *
    An hour earlier, Rick Evans had followed Pascal Grant down those steps into the kitchen. It was enormous, but the stamped-tin
     ceiling was surprisingly low and the room’s dry snugness made Rick think of
Wind in the Willows
and of Mr. Badger’s home and Mole’s cosy tunnels. Blue rag rugs were scattered over brown floor tiles, a massive cookstove
     resplendent with nickel-plate ornamentation dominated the room, and one wall was lined with shallow open shelves that held
     the blue willowware Sophie Breul had provided for her servants’ daily use.
    Rick had wanted to open the doors of the huge chestnut ice box, to lift the lids of painted tin canisters and peer into the
     built-in storage bins, but Pascal Grant had tugged at his sleeve.
    “They’re all empty. Come and see my window before it gets dark, okay?”
    As he trailed Pascal through the cavernous basement passages, Rick was reminded of explorations he used to take with his best
     friend through abandoned barns and farmhouses back home in Louisiana’s bayou country. There was that same sense of sadness,
     of human artifacts abandoned to their own devices.
    On the other side of the scullery were empty coal bins, made redundant by an oil furnace that was itself in need of replacement.
     Beyond the kitchen lay rooms no longer needed for their